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My Games This Weekend - 11.20.09 - New Super Mario Bros. Wii and WWE
by Kombo Staff | 11/20/09 | 4:38 PM PST

This weekend, it's more New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The wife and I have already stepped into the dark land of World 8, and will soon make Bowser eat his own shell. So far, the game really hasn't been all that difficult, even with two of us getting in the way of one-another. Nonetheless, it's been quite a fun ride, and I can't wait to go back and start exploring for secrets, Star Coins, and such.

I'm also aiming to get WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 for the Wii underway, so keep an eye out for that review soon. In the meantime, I've got the DS version in progress, so hopefully that will show up sometime early next week.

In addition, WWE Survivor Series is this Sunday, and I'll likely have Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, aka "the best game in the series" with me. Funny that in one game, I have to ensure Bowser's survival, while in the other, he's soon going to wish he was never born. Such is life.

So, those are my games this weekend, what are yours?

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November Marks the Launch Anniversary of Many a Gaming Platform
by Kombo Staff | 11/20/09 | 4:08 PM PST

A lot of console and handheld anniversaries are being observed this year, such as the SEGA Genesis, the Dreamcast, and the Game Boy. But November seems to be the month to remember, as many a memorable platform celebrate can celebrate its launch going into the Winter holidays.

First and foremost, one cannot overlook the platforms of this very generation. Earlier this week, November 17th marked the third anniversary of the PlayStation 3's North American launch, while the Wii celebrated its own third just yesterday, November 19th. And at the start of next week, November 22nd, the Xbox 360 will also be able to celebrate, except this will be its fourth.

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Media: Rabbids Go Home Music Video, Songs on iTunes
by Kombo Staff | 11/20/09 | 3:53 PM PST

Ubisoft has announced that for those who enjoy the soundtrack to the recently-released comedy-adventure Rabbids Go Home, the tracks can now be purchased and downloaded from iTunes.

To give you a sampling of what you're in for, they have produced the following music video:



Personally, I think more publishers interested in selling the music from their games should consider such an approach.

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FFXIII Gets "T" Rating Long After Nintendo Tried Marketing Original to Adults
by Kombo Staff | 11/20/09 | 3:08 PM PST

Following the announcement of a release date, The Examiner reports that Final Fantasy XIII now has a rating by the ESRB. And that rating is... T for Teen. Like you thought it would be anything else.

The reason for the rating is Violence (natch), Mild Language (yippee), and Suggestive Themes-- hello. Examiner says that "While the rating shouldn't be a shock to anyone, the use of suggestive themes could be. With the game appearing to have a heavy atmosphere of love and caring, two women who link together to form a car, are surely some other sexual like surprises, the suggestive themes are likely to be minor sequences."

On a related note, did you know that Nintendo once tried to market the original NES Final Fantasy toward adults?

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Nintendo Goes Nationwide with Holiday Mall Experience
by Kombo Staff | 11/20/09 | 2:47 PM PST

There are no doubt numerous games you would like to try out this holiday season. Of course, games aren't cheap, and in this economy, you can't just spend indiscriminately on unproven goods. Rentals are an option, but their prices these days are closer to a down-payment. And then there's piracy, but really, shame on you for even considering it.

What to do, then? Well, Nintendo is providing its own answer in the form of the Nintendo Holiday Mall Experience, which can be found starting November 23rd in 35 malls across America. There, you'll get the chance to go hands-on with hits such as Wii Sports Resort and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, or see first-hand what this whole "Wii Fit Plus" thing is really all about. Other titles on hand will be Style Savvy, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, and-- once it's launched on December 7th-- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

Check out the full press release after the cut for further details, plus the most important part-- where to go to find it.

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REVIEW: C.O.P. The Recruit Pushes the DS More Than You Would Think
by Ryan Olsen | 11/20/09 | 12:44 PM PST

What the Game's About
C.O.P. The Recruit is an open-world game on the DS that puts you in control of Dan Miles, a former illegal street racer turned C.O.P., better known as Criminal Overturn Program recruit. Your partnership with a Detective Winter hits a road block when he is falsely arrested and Dan turns back to his former life to figure out what exactly happened. This time around, he's undercover. The arrest was just one part of a vast conspiracy that has horrible repercussions if the plan succeeds.

What's Hot
If someone were to glance at the game on your DS, they might mistake it for a full-blown Grand Theft Auto game. COP is a much tamer approach to open-world, sandbox-like games; however, the technology that is it built around is some of the most impressive seen on the DS yet. You have free reign over New York City where you run and drive all over the place. There are pedestrians, lamp posts, mailboxes and other background items that bring the city to life. The game runs smoothly with no noticeable slowdown. You can walk around the nine square miles of New York or you can commandeer a vehicle and buzz around quickly. The scope of the city is impressive for the DS for how well the game runs. Sure, there is some draw distance but that is a negligible issue. Inside the tall buildings of New York are equally impressive environments. The police HQ feels like a working office that you could jump right into.

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GameStop's Black Friday Video Game Deals Revealed
by Kombo Staff | 11/20/09 | 12:33 PM PST

The dreaded date of Black Friday on November 27th, 2009 draws ever closer. And while Kmart's gamer deals did little to excite, perhaps GameStop's offerings will do a little more for you.

So if you decide to venture forth out into the November cold at 6am for the named-in-poor-taste "Doorbuster" deals that run until 11am, or just any of the other deals which run all week, here is what you can expect.

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Media: It's the Spirit of Zelda and She's Really Rad - 17 Images, 3 Vids, and Why Zelda's Playable
by David Oxford | 11/20/09 | 11:40 AM PST



We've got a nice heaping helping of Zelda goodness for you today, and at the top of the list are the seventeen new images added to our gallery for The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which includes the above image. Nothing has been confirmed, but I think we can safely say that this picture rather heavily implies the return of some Four Swords-styled gameplay for Spirit Tracks' multiplayer. And who knows? Maybe people will get a chance to really play it this time.

Hit the cut to go to the gallery, check out some Japanese gameplay videos, and see Aonuma's explanation for making Zelda sorta-playable.

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"We Interrupt This Deathmatch to Bring You the Following Announcement..."
by David Oxford | 11/20/09 | 11:13 AM PST

Some of you might be familiar with the Emergency Broadcast System or its successor, the Emergency Alert System, which tend to interrupt television shows and commercials with their shrill sound tests. And on occasion, they even warn you of imminent danger, too.

That is, unless most of the time your television spends on is used playing video games, in which case you'll be halfway to Oz before you know what's going on. That's why state officials in New York are planning to send the alerts issued by the Emergency Management Office over video game networks.

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Rebuttal: Is Infinty Ward Anti-PC?
by Matt Pearce | 11/20/09 | 6:16 AM PST

A few days ago we published an article under the title "Modern Warfare 2: The Battleground for PC Gaming?" in which one of Kombo's Editorialists, Eric Frederiksen, discussed the hardcore PC gamer's opinions regarding Infinity Ward's move to do away with dedicated servers for their latest release. Like Eric, I'm a huge PC gamer. I've been playing PC games since DOS, and I don't plan on quitting. I fondly remember Quake LAN parties and dialing-up friends for Warcraft 2 matches. I'm also sad to see that games are straying from dedicated servers. In fact, the only statement of Eric's that I directly disagree with is that Infinity Ward's decision to use matchmaking in Modern Warfare 2 is "...one of the loudest shots fired from the bow of a major publisher against PC gaming." Infinity Ward isn't anti-PC, they're anti-piracy. If they were anti-PC they wouldn't have spent the time and resources to port the game to the PC. I know piracy played such a huge role in the decision, because shortly after the first Modern Warfare was released, Kotaku dug up a blog post of Robert Bowling's (creative director of Infinity Ward and a major proponent of the new matchmaking system) in which he mentions a disturbingly large number of people playing pirated versions of the game on the online multiplayer. Mr. Bowling titled this blog post "They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More". With that said, it can't be denied that Infinity Ward did, in fact, anger a lot of their hardcore PC fans with the decision to use matchmaking in Modern Warfare 2.

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BLOG: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Hater
by Keri Honea | 11/20/09 | 5:40 AM PST

Before I begin my diatribe, please understand something about me first. I am a huge Kingdom Hearts fan. The original game was pretty much what pushed me from casually playing videogames to becoming a hardcore gamer, particularly in the realm of RPGs. I love the franchise so much that I completed the Chain of Memories installment on the GBA (of which I'm told I'm one of five people to suffer through this game), I imported the Japanese version of the same game just to buy the game again when it was released State-side, and I bought and played Kingdom Hearts 2 as well as the imported Final Mix. So when word first got out about 358/2 Days, I was one pumped little KH fangirl.

I really liked Roxas' character in KH2, so I was excited to get to play his side of the story. However, instead of loving every minute of it like I did with the other games, I've been utterly bored. Roxas' character barely has any personality. This Xion chick is annoying as hell, and I can't wait until she dies off (that's not a spoiler, people, she wasn't in KH2). What's up with all these missions that are exactly the same? You either gather hearts, take care of some nasty boss, shoot globs, ambush the Emerald Serenade, collect emblems, take the occasional endurance test or perform a bit of recon. That's it, rinse and repeat for 93 missions. And this panel system…where have I seen this before and didn't I hate it then? Oh yes! It was in Chain of Memories!

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Satoshi Sakai Talks Phantasy Star 0, Plus the Return of Phantasy Star Online?
by Eric Jones | 11/19/09 | 9:38 PM PST

Our buddies over at Gamereactor were able to catch up with Phantasy Star 0's producer Satoshi Sakai to talk about the upcoming RPG. While there, he dropped some big hints of what to expect from the future of the PS franchise.



As you heard, Sakai is looking into a return to consoles for the next Phantasy Star game, which would be celebrating the ten year anniversary of the original Phantasy Star Online's release on Dreamcast. Not a bad bet, but I'm more hoping for a revival of the ORIGINAL Phantasy Star series. Seriously! Phantasy Star V! Anyone? No? Just me? Okay.

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Ubisoft Opens Rabbids Comic Blog
by Kombo Staff | 11/19/09 | 5:21 PM PST



If you simply cannot get enough Raving Rabbids, then Ubisoft has found a way to keep you entertained twice a week without running up their computer animation budget. Just check out the Rabbids Comic Blog to see more of their efforts to reach the moon, presumably before they decided that stacking up tons of junk was the most ideal way to achieve their goal.

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Random Video of the Day: Death Metal Bowser's Castle Theme
by Kombo Staff | 11/19/09 | 5:11 PM PST

The folks at CollegeHumor.com suggest that "If you can't handle this, then you shouldn't be inside a kidnapper dinosaurs death castle."

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

And of course, my first reaction near the end would be "what? But he doesn't get any points for killing him that way!" And my wife was thinking the same thing, more or less (along the lines of "why have fireballs if you're not going to use them?").

Now, I just have to wonder what a full Mario soundtrack in death metal would sound like. In any case, I do wish Nintendo would remix that theme sometime.

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The Re-Imagining of Mortal Kombat That Might Have Been
by Kombo Staff | 11/19/09 | 4:58 PM PST



Before departing Midway last year, artist Vincent Proce put together a proposal for a new Mortal Kombat game that was "a re imagining of the Mortal Kombat franchise from the original premise but mixing modern muti-player and dismemberment game design with the original fighting mechanic." As a part of that proposal, he redesigned four of the characters from the original roster.

Given that he's no longer with the company, the idea isn't going to happen and only stands as a vision of what might have been. Nevertheless, he says "I still would like to one day redesign all the rest of the original characters if I ever find the time.

You can check out the four designs in much higher resolution alongside brief descriptions at his blog, along with some other cool stuff, including various MK vs. DCU endings and images.